Winning a national championship in anything is hard but in major college football its even that much more difficult.
Consider this: only three current college head coaches have won a national championship at the FBS level.
Kirby Smart has won a pair at Georgia and appears primed to take dead aim at another this fall.
Dabo Swinney doesn’t believe much in the transfer portal but has guided Clemson to a pair of national championships in his time.
And Mack Brown didn’t do it at North Carolina but did lead Texas to their most recent national championship in 2005.
Other than that no current head coach has guided his respective team to an FBS crown.
So what are the chances that [autotag]Marcus Freeman[/autotag] can join that rare air at Notre Dame?
Former Alabama quarterback Greg McElroy discussed several coaches chances of winning it all on a recent episode of Always College Football.
“I put the percentage chance that he will win a national championship at Notre Dame at 10%,” said McElroy. “Still, I think, pretty good – pretty good.”
McElroy discussed Freeman and Notre Dame at length noting that he has massive respect for the Fighting Irish head coach. He sees it more about being difficult to win big at Notre Dame specifically than any particular thing about Freeman.
“When you have to play in round one – Clemson in round one perhaps? Maybe, in round two, you have to go play Alabama. In round three you have to play Georgia. Then, for the national championship, you have to play Ohio State,” McElroy thought. “Will Notre Dame’s roster be deep enough? Will they be talented enough to be able to play up to the level of competition multiple times throughout a deeper playoff format?”
What McElroy didn’t mention is that in the current 12-team format, an undefeated Notre Dame team could theoretically have a much easier path than he mentioned.
For instance, if Notre Dame were to go 12-0 in a regular season they could very likely earn the fifth-seed which gets them a date with the top-ranked Group of Five opponent.
Following them would be the lowest seeded conference champion from the big four, likely coming from the Big 12 or ACC.
Win those games and all of a sudden you’re in the national semi-finals and the path, although plenty challenging, doesn’t appear nearly as awful.
Then again, this format will only be for the next two years.
Interesting stuff, regardless.
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